Oldest Stories

The Assyrian Empire was at the height of its power, but King Esarhaddon was losing control of his own court. Prophets were declaring new kings, powerful officials were plotting rebellion, and the gods themselves seemed determined to destroy the king they had once chosen.

In the final years of Esarhaddon's reign, Assyria conquered Egypt, crushed the kingdom of Shubria, and reached new heights of imperial power. Yet Esarhaddon himself was increasingly consumed by questions of legitimacy, divine omens, and threats to his life. Repeatedly retreating into substitute king rituals to escape the fate foretold...

In 673 BC, the mighty Assyrian Empire marched against Egypt, determined to achieve a conquest greater than any Assyrian king had accomplished before. Instead, its army suffered a humiliating defeat.

My voice is a bit different because I am recovering from a bad cold. Editing is probably more choppy than usual. Such is life.

But why did King Esarhaddon invade Egypt in the first place? And how had Egypt, after centuries of political fragmentation, become powerful enough to resist the greatest empire in the ancient Near East?

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The Pedubastis Cycle is a group of ancient Egyptian heroic tales centered on Pharaoh Pedubastis, Inaros, Petechonsis, Pemaus, and the powerful local rulers of Egypt during the centuries surrounding the Assyrian invasions. Preserved mainly in fragmentary Demotic Egyptian manuscripts from later periods, these stories transform an obscure era of Egyptian political fragmentation into a legendary age of heroes, feuds, enchanted objects, battles, divine intervention, and dynastic rivalry.

This episode examines several surviving stories from the Pedubastis Cycle, beginning with the fragmentary Story of Bes and the legendary hero Inaros. It then follows Petechonsis into...

How did ancient Assyria use divination, astrology, and animal livers to make decisions of war, government, and royal policy? Under King Esarhaddon, the Neo-Assyrian Empire developed one of the ancient world’s most sophisticated systems of omen interpretation, combining centuries of recorded observations with extispicy, celestial omens, ritual expertise, and consultation with the gods.

This episode examines the intellectual world of Assyrian divination and the system of experts who advised the royal court. Mesopotamian scholars collected and analyzed omens over generations, searching for correlations between unusual events, astronomical phenomena, medical symptoms, animal behavior, and su...

The Cimmerians were among the first great horse nomad powers to crash into the civilizations of the ancient Near East. Emerging from the Scytho-Siberian world north of the Caucasus, they struck Urartu, devastated Phrygia and Lydia, raided deep into the Near East, and became legendary in Greek memory as one of the great barbarian terrors of antiquity.

But how dangerous were they really?

In this episode, we look beyond the later legends to reconstruct the Cimmerians and their Scythian cousins as actual people: their pastoral economy, horses, clothing, settlements...

Esarhaddon inherited the Neo-Assyrian Empire at the height of its power—but his kingship looked very different from that of the warrior-kings who came before him. Plagued by questions of legitimacy, surrounded by prophets and diviners, and often absent from his own military campaigns, Esarhaddon nevertheless presided over an extraordinarily aggressive and successful Assyrian state.

This episode follows the first half of Esarhaddon’s reign: the rebuilding of Babylon, the rise of prophecy as a political force, wars against Chaldeans and Arabs, the arrival of the Cimmerians, the destruction of Sidon, the treaty with Baal...

The ancient story of Ahiqar follows a legendary wise man and royal adviser at the court of the Assyrian king Sennacherib. After adopting his nephew Nadan and teaching him a long collection of proverbs, Ahiqar is betrayed, falsely accused of treason, condemned to death, and forced to hide beneath his own house. His eventual return leads to a strange contest of riddles with the Pharaoh of Egypt and a final confrontation with the student who rejected his wisdom.

Preserved in an ancient Aramaic papyrus from Elephantine and in later Syriac, Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Slavonic...

In the final years of Sennacherib’s reign, the Neo-Assyrian Empire entered a strange period of peace. After decades of war, conquest, rebellion, and the destruction of Babylon, the greatest military power of the ancient Near East suddenly stopped expanding.

Was Sennacherib simply more interested in building Nineveh than campaigning abroad? Had Assyria reached the natural limits of profitable conquest? Or were omens and divination beginning to restrain the king’s decisions?

The question became far more dangerous when Sennacherib unexpectedly removed his established crown prince and elevated a youn...

An examination of the deepest level of the Ancient Mesopotamia iceberg, commonly labeled "Theories and Speculative Ideas." The video reviews each claim against primary sources from Sumer, Akkad, Babylon, and Assyria, including cuneiform tablets, excavation reports, and geological data, to demonstrate how historical method evaluates extraordinary claims.

Coverage includes: Ancient Astronauts and the Annunaki: the origin of the theory in Zecharia Sitchin, what the Akkadian term actually means in Mesopotamian religion, and the evidential standards for alien contact claims. Great Flood myths: comparison of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Genesis, and other flood traditions with...

Sennacherib is remembered as one of the most powerful kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, but his greatest legacy may not have been conquest. It was Nineveh: a rebuilt imperial capital of canals, gardens, temples, walls, lamassu, and the famous Palace Without Rival.

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we look at Sennacherib’s engineering innovations and his massive transformation of Nineveh in the late 8th and early 7th centuries BCE. Unlike many earlier Assyrian kings, Sennacherib did not focus primarily on expanding the borders of the empire. Instead, he poured the wealth, labor, and po...

Its the siege of Lachish, but also a much more wide ranging explanation of Assyrian siegecraft more generally. Including how it was recognizably modern and, in many ways, responsible for modernity.

In 701 BCE, Assyrian king Sennacherib launched his western campaign against Judah, bringing him into direct conflict with King Hezekiah and the political counsel of the prophet Isaiah. The decisive field battle of that year was not at Jerusalem, but at Eltekeh, where Assyrian troops defeated an Egyptian and Kushite force sent to support the rebellious Philistine city of Ekron.

This episode reconstructs the full 701 campaign from Assyrian annals and biblical accounts, beginning with the minor 702 operations in the Zagros mountains against Zamua, Parsua, and Ellipi, then following Sennacherib to the Phoenician coast. We cover...

Babylon had survived five destructions before Sennacherib tried to erase it for good. Why did Assyria's most bookish king — a man who loved Babylonian scholarship — finally flood the city and smash its temples in 689 BCE?

This is Oldest Stories, a biweekly deep dive into ancient Mesopotamia. Online at oldeststories.net

In this episode we trace Babylon's strange immortality: a city founded around 1894 BCE that claimed six thousand years of history by borrowing it from Eridu, the first city of the gods. We walk through each of Babylon's "deaths":

Sennacherib is remembered in the Bible as a villain, the Assyrian king who invaded Judah and stood against Jerusalem. But that reputation, like his father Sargon’s as a world conqueror, may be misleading. Beneath the image of the tyrant is a ruler who was unusually patient, deeply pious, and more interested in building than destroying.

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we enter the Sargonid period of the Neo-Assyrian Empire and examine the life and character of Sennacherib. Raised not as a destined king but as a highly educated noble, Se...

This episode examines the final major campaign of Sargon II of Assyria (reigned 722–705 BCE) and the long conflict with the Chaldean ruler Marduk-apla-iddina II (Merodach-Baladan) for control of Babylonia. Early in Sargon’s reign the Neo-Assyrian king suffered a serious defeat near the city of Der when an Elamite army intervened in support of the Babylonian revolt. The loss allowed Merodach-Baladan, leader of the Bit-Yakin Chaldean tribe, to claim the throne of Babylon and rule much of southern Mesopotamia for roughly a decade.

After spending many years campaigning on other frontiers of the Neo-Assyrian Empi...

How does one "do" history, and can an AI do it? The answers:1. You don't "do" history, you feel it.2. AI can do the actions of history, but it can't feel it.Bonus rant: I never liked the idea that the point of history is to learn from the past. Yes, there is learning to be done, that can be both useful and fun, but I feel that this reduces history to something less than it is in practice. And indeed, think about your own consumption of history, how often are you learning valuable lessons compared to how often...

Oldest Stories Album available here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/oldeststoriesmusic/oldest-stories-vol-1 but also possibly on your favorite music distributor service also. Check it out!

This episode examines the middle years of the reign of Sargon II of Assyria (r. 722–705 BCE) during a brief period when the Assyrian Empire faced unusually little large-scale war. Following Sargon’s major victory over Urartu in 714–713 BCE, the geopolitical balance of the Near East shifted dramatically. Urartu, long the primary rival to Assyria in the Armenian highlands, was weakened both by Sargon’s campaign and by the simultaneous arrival of Cimme...

This episode explores how the Neo-Assyrian Empire actually functioned at the administrative level under Sargon II, focusing on imperial bureaucracy, logistics, and governance. Using surviving Assyrian letters and court records, we examine the real machinery of empire: provincial governors, royal magnates, intelligence networks, military command structure, taxation, construction logistics, and the role of officials like the Rab Shaqe, Turtan, Sukkallu, Sartinnu, Ummanu, and Masennu.

Rather than focusing on warfare alone, this episode shows how Assyria maintained control through record-keeping, resource management, legal authority, and centralized oversight. Topics include Dur-Sharrukin’s construction, Assyrian spy networks, pr...

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we cover Sargon II of Assyria and his most famous campaign: the Great Invasion of Urartu (714 BCE), centered on the extraordinary Assyrian text known as Sargon’s Letter to Ashur. This episode examines the Neo-Assyrian Empire, Assyrian military strategy, intelligence networks, and imperial warfare in the late 8th century BCE, drawing directly from Assyrian royal inscriptions, letters, and annals.

We follow Sargon II (r. 722–705 BCE) from the construction of Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad) through his campaigns in Mannea, Zikirtu, Zamua, the Zagros Mountains, and deep into Urartian territory near Lake Van...

In this episode, we break down the composition of the Neo-Assyrian Army under the Sargonid dynasty (Tiglath-Pileser III, Sargon II, and their successors) and explain why Assyria’s battlefield dominance in the 8th–7th centuries BCE was not just “more men” or “more brutality,” but a specific military system built around logistics, organization, and a flexible combined-arms force.

You’ll learn what the core Assyrian infantryman looked like in practice: a general-purpose soldier equipped for multiple battlefield roles (spear, sword, bow, and shield), and why that versatility mattered for campaigns, garrisons, policing, construction, and sieges. We als...

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we step back from the famous conquests of the Neo-Assyrian Empire to ask a more fundamental question: what did ancient warfare actually look like on the ground, and how did the Assyrian army emerge from thousands of years of evolving combat traditions? Focusing on the world that produced the Sargonid military system, this episode examines the deep origins of organized warfare in Mesopotamia, from tribal raiding and Bronze Age spear lines to the psychological mechanics of close-order combat.

Rather than starting with siege engines, cavalry, or elite archers...

Today we attempt an immersive historical reconstruction of Dur-Sharrukin, the short-lived but astonishing capital built by Sargon II of Assyria in the late eighth century BCE. Set primarily in 706 BCE, this episode takes the listener on a guided tour of the city at the height of its splendor, using a fictional Urartian envoy as a narrative lens to explore what may be the most ambitious urban project of the ancient Near East.

Drawing closely on archaeological evidence, royal inscriptions, and comparative material from Assyria and Babylonia, the episode reconstructs the experience of approaching Dur-Sharrukin...

Apologies for my voice and the lack of graphics. Been sick again and barely got this out today.

Episode 179 examines the founding, construction, abandonment, and rediscovery of Dur-Sharrukin (Khorsabad), the short-lived royal capital built by Sargon II of Assyria in the late eighth century BCE. The narrative begins with the history of early Mesopotamian excavation through the career of Paul-Émile Botta, whose 1843–1844 work near Mosul and Khorsabad helped inaugurate Assyriology and introduced Europe to monumental Assyrian palace architecture, relief sculpture, and royal inscriptions. The episode follows Botta’s unusual path into Near Eastern explo...

Sargon II of Assyria faces a crisis of legitimacy after a humiliating defeat, but transforms potential disaster into triumph through military genius and calculated brutality. This episode chronicles his desperate 720 BCE campaign from Mesopotamia to the Levant, where he perfects combined arms warfare and decimates Samaria so thoroughly that ten tribes of Israel vanish from history.

Following his controversial rise to power, Sargon must prove divine favor through victory or lose everything. Watch as he masters siege warfare with unprecedented tactical sophistication, deploying battering rams under coordinated covering fire to crack fortress walls that stymied his predecessors...

Listen all the way to the end for a special musical feature about Sargon II. This episode explores one of the most pivotal and least understood turning points in Neo-Assyrian history, examining the rise of a king whose origins, motives, and very name remain contested even after a century of scholarship. These are the Oldest Stories, available at OldestStories.net. Note that the song at the end of the episode is AI generated.

In 722 BCE, Sargon II seized the Assyrian throne and entered an eighteen-year reign that forms the best-documented era of ancient Mesopotamian...

In 727 BCE, the death of Tiglath-Pileser III—one of Assyria’s greatest reformers and conquerors—brought to the throne his son Ululayu, known to history by his regnal name Shalmaneser V. This episode of Oldest Stories examines the short, poorly documented, yet pivotal reign of Shalmaneser the Least, exploring the troubled transition between the age of Tiglath-Pileser’s reform and the rise of Sargon II. Drawing on fragmentary Assyrian records, biblical sources, and archaeological evidence, the episode reconstructs the domestic policies, fiscal reforms, and failed campaigns that defined his rule.

Listeners will learn how Shalmane...

Yes, there are more important things in the Syro-Ephraimite war than Israel's defeat, but the whole three year campaign is hugely important in world history, even if the things we consider to have been important were really just sort of side shows to the main action. We follow the full campaign in detail as Tiglath-Pileser confirms his final near eastern conquest.

I am also doing daily history facts again, at least until I run out of time again. You can find Oldest Stories daily on Tiktok and Youtube Shorts.

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Nathaniel Heutmaker of the Grail Sciences Podcast and James Bleckley of the Oldest Stories podcast sat down to discuss Mesopotamian myth from an occult perspective. But they ended up sitting for hours and hours over multiple days and got off track more than once. Because I find a bunch of it interesting, I cut the most interesting clips together for you today, so hear you can hear Nathaniel's take on the oldest archeological findings, King Arthur, Josephus, and more!

The Grail Sciences Podcast covers the deeper meaning of the Holy Grail and a variety...

Gilgamesh is the oldest and greatest hero of recorded human legend. The epic as a whole questions what it means to be human, warns of the dangers of spurning a beautiful woman, and meditates deeply on the meaning of immortality. All that plus a good adventure story at the same time! James Bleckley of the Oldest Stories Podcast sits down with Nathaniel Heutmaker of the Grail Sciences Podcast to discuss this ancient tale from both an historical and an occult perspective.

The Grail Sciences Podcast covers the deeper meaning of the Holy Grail and...

Dumuzid, the oldest known exemplar of the dying and rising king, is also in many ways the most exceptional. Lover of Inanna, he was apparently quite done with her passionate antics and celebrated when she died, only to be dragged into the underworld for his impiety. But what does it really mean and why has the image endured? James Bleckley of the Oldest Stories Podcast sits down with Nathaniel Heutmaker of the Grail Sciences Podcast to discuss this ancient tale from both an historical and an occult perspective.

The Grail Sciences Podcast covers the...

Inanna, queen of heaven, who descended into the underworld. It is among the oldest stories of the mythology of the world, but also one of the most significant. James Bleckley of the Oldest Stories Podcast sits down with Nathaniel Heutmaker of the Grail Sciences Podcast to discuss this ancient tale from both an historical and an occult perspective.

The Grail Sciences Podcast covers the deeper meaning of the Holy Grail and a variety of occult topics. Nathaniel is deeply read in a variety of world traditions, and expertly weaves it all together over at...

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we explore the later reign of Tiglath-Pileser III, one of the most transformative kings of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. By the late 8th century BCE, Assyria’s power seemed unstoppable, yet beneath the victories lay structural weaknesses.

We examine four key failures that reveal how the empire actually worked:

The eastern provincial revolts of 737 BCE, exposing the limits of Assyria’s new provincial system.

The failed Assyrian siege of Tushpa, capital of Urartu, and what it taught about siege warf...

What do mass deportation, smashed testicles, and elite boarding schools have in common? In this episode, we take a hard look at the shockingly effective—and horrifyingly brutal—bureaucratic machine that powered the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

With the rise of Tiglath-Pileser III in the 8th century BCE, Assyria transformed into one of the most ruthlessly efficient states the ancient world had ever seen. At the center of it all? Castrated boys turned bureaucrats—eunuchs molded through violence, trained in literacy, logistics, and loyalty, and unleashed across the empire as obedient tools of imperial administration.

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You have seen the memes, and maybe you are even familiar with them, but today we look at who was the famous Ea-Nasir, why people would buy from him, and what scams he was probably running. We ask how often Mesopotamians complained about things, and we learn a bit along the way.

In this episode, we go far beyond the famous complaint tablet to uncover the full economic and historical context of Ea-Nasir's career:

His rise from wage-earner to property owner - His role in the first global trade...

In 743 BCE, Tiglath-Pileser III—known in the Bible as Pul—led the Assyrian Empire into its most powerful and centralized form. This episode of Oldest Stories chronicles the dramatic military and political resurgence of Neo-Assyria as it faced two major threats: the rising Urartian kingdom of Biainilli to the north and the rebellious patchwork of Neo-Hittite and Aramean states in Syria. With detailed narrative drawn from Assyrian royal inscriptions and biblical texts, we explore Tiglath-Pileser’s sweeping campaigns across Kummuhu, Arpad, Ulluba, and the Levant, showcasing how the king combined strategic force marches, sophisticated provincial integration, and unprecedented use of eun...

This episode is the essential starting point for understanding the Neo-Assyrian Empire. In 745 BCE, a relatively obscure man named Tukulti-Apil-Esharra—better known by his biblical name Tiglath-Pileser III—seized the Assyrian throne in what would become one of the most transformative moments in ancient Near Eastern history. This episode explores how Tiglath-Pileser's revolutionary reforms reshaped the military, administration, and ideology of the Assyrian state, laying the foundation for the largest and most durable empire the world had yet seen.

We delve into the political collapse that preceded his rise, the obscure origins and contested legi...

This is where to start for the Neo-Assyrian Empire’s epic tale. In this foundational episode, we return to the heartland of Assyria at its lowest point—between the conquests of Shalmaneser III and the revolutionary rise of Tiglath-Pileser III. It is a time of political decay, military paralysis, and divine silence. We explore the full sweep of Assyrian history from its founding in the third millennium BCE through the Middle Assyrian period, and into the long Adaside dynasty that shaped Mesopotamia for over eight centuries. Focusing on the reigns of Shalmaneser IV, Assur-Dan III, and Assur-Nirari V, this epis...

In this episode of Oldest Stories, we return to the Armenian Highlands in 786 BCE to witness the death of King Menua of Urartu (Biainilli) and the rise of his son Argishti I—a transition that begins the golden age of the Urartian kingdom. Explore the geopolitics, warfare, urbanization, and social engineering of one of the most impressive and least understood Iron Age empires.

We trace Argishti I’s ruthless expansion across Anatolia and the Caucasus, highlighting his staggering military campaigns—including the mass deportation of over 50,000 captives from the Diauehi—and the founding of major ci...

Buy the Oldest Stories books!: https://a.co/d/7Wn4jhS :In this episode of Oldest Stories, we explore the complex military and political history of Urartu during its northern campaigns in the early 8th century BCE. As King Menua consolidates power and expands Biainilli influence into the Armenian Highlands, he clashes with the highland polities of Etiuni and Diauehi—two distinct yet influential groups whose stories illuminate the ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity of the Iron Age Caucasus.

We examine the engineering feats of Urartian infrastructure, the fortress networks of Etiuni, and the se...

Sorry for the late post - Spotify had this scheduled, but didn't post it on the correct day.

Today we look at the daily life and industry of the Armenian highland kingdom of Urartu through the eyes of three Hurrians, a miner, a smelter, and an iron worker. This is a historical fiction, but it is based on what we can know about the industries and daily life of that era.

I am also doing daily history facts again, at least until I run out of time again. You...